Pope's resignation ends turbulent journey

Pope Benedict XVI

New York Times

Updated 11:14 pm, Monday, February 11, 2013

Photo: Max Rossi, AFP/Getty Images

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(FILES) A file picture taken on June 8, 2012 shows Pope Benedict XVI looking on following a meeting with the Sri Lankan President at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI announced on February 11, 2013 he will resign on February 28 because his age prevented him from carrying out his duties, an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church. AFP PHOTO / POOL / Max RossiMax ROSSI/AFP/Getty Images less

(FILES) A file picture taken on June 8, 2012 shows Pope Benedict XVI looking on following a meeting with the Sri Lankan President at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI announced on February 11, 2013 he will resign ... more

Photo: Max Rossi, AFP/Getty Images

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Pope Benedict XVI pays respects at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City in May 2009.

Pope Benedict XVI pays respects at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City in May 2009.

Photo: Menahem Kahana, AFP/Getty Images

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The newly elected pope appears on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City in April 2005.

The newly elected pope appears on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City in April 2005.

Photo: Peter Macdiarmid, Getty Images

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FILE - This mid-1970s file photo shows the archbishop of Munich and Freising, Joseph Ratzinger, who is to be elevated to cardinal by Pope Paul VI. Ratzinger was elected Pope, April 19, 2005 and chose Benedict XVI as his papal name. Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, he would resign Feb. 28 because he is simply too old to carry on. (AP Photo/File) less

FILE - This mid-1970s file photo shows the archbishop of Munich and Freising, Joseph Ratzinger, who is to be elevated to cardinal by Pope Paul VI. Ratzinger was elected Pope, April 19, 2005 and chose Benedict ... more

Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press

Pope's resignation ends turbulent journey

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When Benedict XVI became pope eight years ago at the age of 78, many Roman Catholic scholars predicted that he would be a caretaker. He would keep the ship sailing in the same direction as his beloved predecessor, John Paul II. And as the rare theologian who knew how to write for a broad audience, Benedict would keep the crew inspired and the sails billowing.

If written words alone could keep the church on course, Benedict would probably be viewed as a solid success. His encyclicals on love and on charity and his three books on the life of Jesus were widely praised for their clarity and contribution to Catholic teaching.

But when it came to the major challenges facing the church in the real world, Benedict often appeared to carom from one crisis to the next.

Muslim riots

He inadvertently insulted Muslims on an early trip to Germany, which resulted in riots across the Islamic world and the killing of an Italian nun in Somalia. He welcomed back a breakaway bishop who had just recorded an interview denying the facts of the Holocaust. He told reporters on the papal plane winging toward Africa that condoms had helped spread AIDS.

When the clerical sexual abuse scandal spread across Europe and exploded at Benedict's door in 2010, he met with abuse survivors and oversaw the development of new church policies to prevent abuse. But he was denounced by survivors and their advocates for never moving to discipline bishops who were caught in the cover-up.

'Tin-ear papacy'

Even Benedict's attempt to reach out with a pastoral letter to the church in Ireland, worn down by revelations of widespread clergy sexual abuse, left many there infuriated when he appeared to blame the nation's spiritual disillusionment on the Irish Catholics themselves.

"It's been the tin-ear papacy," said Christopher Bellitto, chairman and associate professor of history at Kean University in Union, N.J., who studies the papacy. "It's been a very small, introverted papacy because that's who he is. The pope is an introvert."

Benedict's biggest challenge was to set a course for a church that is still divided over the meaning and legacy of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which opened the door to modern reforms.

The council resulted in changes like empowering laypeople in parish life, celebrating the Mass in the local vernacular language rather than in Latin, and allowing nuns to expand their mission beyond working in church schools and hospitals.

To many Catholic traditionalists, Benedict is a hero who has reeled in the excesses of Vatican II, by promoting "the reform of the reform."

He expanded the use of the Latin Mass used before Vatican II. He pushed the English-speaking Catholic churches to adopt a liturgy translation more faithful to the original Latin - a change that many priests protested was awkward and alienating, but which has gradually taken hold.

In keeping with his previous post as head of the church's doctrinal office, Benedict used his papacy to discipline those who questioned church teaching.

He presided over two investigations of U.S. nuns. He oversaw the censure of theologians and the removal of Bishop William Morris in Australia, who had written a pastoral letter raising the possibility of female and married priests. In 2012, he excommunicated the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a U.S. priest who blessed a woman in what the church considered an illicit ordination ceremony.

Expose by pope's butler

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In the past year, the Vatican became entangled in a scandal that led to the arrest of the pope's butler for leaking documents to a journalist who then published an expose alleging power struggles and corruption. Many church analysts said the Vatican bureaucracy was paralyzed, the church's ship was adrift.

So when the pope stunned the world Monday with his resignation announcement, his supporters and detractors alike almost universally hailed the move as a moment of grace, sounding almost relieved to see the end of what has been a very turbulent journey.

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